Topics

Boehner: Not Enough Votes for ‘Clean’ Bill to Open Government

US Speaker of the House John Boehner speaks to the media after a meeting with US President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, DC, October 2, 2013, on the second day of the government shutdown.

House Speak­er John Boehner in­sisted Sunday there are not enough votes in the House to pass “clean” bills to re­start gov­ern­ment fund­ing and end the shut­down, or to pro­tect the na­tion’s abil­ity to con­tin­ue bor­row­ing money, without Demo­crat­ic con­ces­sions to Re­pub­lic­an policy de­mands.

But Treas­ury Sec­ret­ary Jac­ob Lew on Sunday blamed the shut­down on “the tac­tics of an ex­treme group” of House Re­pub­lic­ans who have been de­mand­ing the de­fund­ing, delay­ing, or dis­mant­ling of Obama­care. And he says the ad­min­is­tra­tion simply won’t back down.

“The pres­id­ent’s mes­sage is clear: Con­gress needs to do its job. They need to open the gov­ern­ment, they need to make it so we can pay our bills, and then we need to ne­go­ti­ate, and he is very much pre­pared to do that,” said Lew, ap­pear­ing on CNN’s State of the Uni­on.

Both men pressed their cases on Sunday morn­ing’s news shows, un­der­scor­ing a wide gulf that con­tin­ues to ex­ist, at least pub­licly, between both sides as the gov­ern­ment shut­down hits its sev­enth day on Monday. And Boehner, ap­pear­ing on ABC’s This Week, dis­missed any hope­ful no­tion that quiet, back-chan­nel ne­go­ti­ations may be un­der way.

“There may be a back­room some­where, but nobody’s in it,” Boehner said.

However, Boehner did note that Obama has can­celed a sched­uled trip this week to Asia, and the Ohio Re­pub­lic­an said, “I’m ready for the phone call. I’m ready for the con­ver­sa­tion.”

Mean­while, the loom­ing debt-ceil­ing fight is com­ing in­to sharp­er fo­cus. The ad­min­is­tra­tion has pro­jec­ted the cur­rent $16.7 tril­lion cap will be hit on about Oct. 17, and Lew has told Con­gress the re­per­cus­sions range from harm to the na­tion’s cred­it­wor­thi­ness and stand­ing to skyrock­et­ing in­terest rates — even caus­ing the U.S. dol­lar to plum­met.

Asked dur­ing This Week about pre­vi­ous prom­ises that he will not per­mit the U.S. to de­fault, Boehner said, “My goal is not to have the U.S. de­fault on its debt.”

But Boehner also warned “it is the path we’re on” if Obama and con­gres­sion­al Demo­crat­ic lead­ers’ con­tin­ue to re­fuse to ne­go­ti­ate and in­sist on what the speak­er de­scribed as “com­plete sur­render” from Re­pub­lic­ans.

He also re­af­firmed that he and oth­er Re­pub­lic­ans will press for spend­ing cuts in re­turn for in­creas­ing the na­tion’s abil­ity to bor­row, but that they also see the debt-ceil­ing fight as an arena for a con­ver­sa­tion about how to ad­dress the main drivers of U.S. debt, such as So­cial Se­cur­ity, Medi­care, and oth­er en­ti­tle­ments. “It is time for us to deal with our un­der­ly­ing spend­ing prob­lems,” he said.

But Lew said on CNN that Con­gress is “play­ing with fire” if it risks fail­ing to raise the na­tion’s debt ceil­ing.

“You can’t pay all the bills if Con­gress doesn’t raise the debt ceil­ing. And none of these bills are new. These are com­mit­ments that Con­gress made — it’s pay­ing old bills,” he said. “It would be like someone ran up their cred­it card and de­cided not to pay it.”

“You can’t do that,” Lew ad­ded, say­ing, “the United States gov­ern­ment is just too im­port­ant to the world. Our cur­rency is the world’s re­serve cur­rency.”

Lew did add, “I know john Boehner doesn’t want to de­fault. He also didn’t want to shut the gov­ern­ment down.” And he said the pres­id­ent does not want that to hap­pen, either. “The pres­id­ent has been, is and will al­ways be look­ing for that way to ne­go­ti­ate to find the sens­ible middle ground,” he said.

But he ad­ded of hard-liners in the House Re­pub­lic­an con­fer­ence: “They ended up with a gov­ern­ment shut­down be­cause of the tac­tics of an ex­treme group try­ing to say we’re will­ing to do real dam­age if we don’t get our way.

Still, Boehner said the con­fer­ence is united.

And on the fight over gov­ern­ment fund­ing that led to the shut­down Oct. 1 — the start of the new fisc­al year — Boehner in­dic­ated no in­clin­a­tion to put a “clean” bill on the floor.

Con­gres­sion­al Demo­crats, and a few Re­pub­lic­ans, claim that if Boehner was will­ing to do that, go­ing against the wishes of the hard-liners and oth­ers in his con­fer­ence, that the bill would pass. They say that, along with few Re­pub­lic­an mod­er­ates, most of the 200 Demo­crats among the total 432 House mem­bers would join in back­ing it.

But Boehner flatly said Sunday on ABC, “There are not the votes in the House to pass a clean CR.” He did not spe­cify if, by that, he meant not enough Re­pub­lic­an votes, or votes in the en­tire House, in­clud­ing both parties.

Mi­chael Czin, a spokes­man for the Demo­crat­ic Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee, re­spon­ded in a state­ment, “In­stead of ac­know­ledging that there are votes in the House to pass a clean con­tinu­ing res­ol­u­tion to open the gov­ern­ment — something that every­one ad­mits but him — Speak­er Boehner would rather keep the gov­ern­ment shut to ex­tract de­mands.”

Boehner dis­missed in­sinu­ations that he is be­ing forced by the far Right in his con­fer­ence in­to a stand-off he did not want. At one point, he ad­mit­ted there had been con­ver­sa­tions with Sen­ate Demo­crat­ic lead­ers about put­ting a clean CR on the floor, not dir­ectly at­tached to lan­guage tar­get­ing the Af­ford­able Care Act.

“I thought the fight would be over the debt ceil­ing,” said Boehner, but he ad­ded that in “talk­ing with my mem­bers, they said, let’s do it now.”

When might the stale­mate end?

“If I knew — I’d tell you,” Boehner said.

Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., one of the con­ser­vat­ives most in­stru­ment­al in the tak­ing up Sen. Ted Cruz’s call for Obama­care con­ces­sions as part of any bill to re­start gov­ern­ment spend­ing, said dur­ing his own ap­pear­ance on Fox News Sunday that House Re­pub­lic­ans re­main united.

And he dis­missed the no­tion that he and oth­er House con­ser­vat­ives would seek to strip Boehner of his speak­er­ship if he did not ad­here to their hard line in ne­go­ti­ations.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) are threatening to block the spending bill—and prevent the Senate from leaving town—"because it would not extend benefits for retired coal miners for a year or pay for their pension plans. The current version of the bill would extend health benefits for four months. ... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Thursday afternoon moved to end debate on the continuing resolution to fund the government through April 28. But unless Senate Democrats relent, that vote cannot be held until Saturday at 1 a.m. at the earliest, one hour after the current funding measure expires."

Source:

PARLIAMENT VOTED 234-56

South Korean President Impeached

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

The South Korean parliament voted on Friday morning to impeach President Park Geun-hye over charges of corruption, claiming she allowed undue influence to a close confidante of hers. Ms. Park is now suspended as president for 180 days. South Korea's Constitutional Court will hear the case and decide whether to uphold or overturn the impeachment.

Source:

CLOSED FOR INAUGURAL ACTIVITIES

NPS: Women’s March Can’t Use Lincoln Memorial

1 hours ago

THE DETAILS

Participants in the women's march on Washington the day after inauguration won't have access to the Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service has "filed documents securing large swaths of the national mall and Pennsylvania Avenue, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial for the inauguration festivities. None of these spots will be open for protesters."

Source:

2.1 PERCENT IN 2017

President Obama Boosts Civilian Federal Pay

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

President Obama on Thursday announced a pay raise for civilian federal employees of 2.1 percent come January 2017. He had said multiple times this year that salaries would go up 1.6 percent, so the Thursday announcement came as a surprise. The change was likely made to match the 2.1 percent increase in salary that members of the military will receive.

Source:

SHUTDOWN LOOMING

House Approves Spending Bill

20 hours ago

BREAKING

The House has completed it's business for 2016 by passing a spending bill which will keep the government funded through April 28. The final vote tally was 326-96. The bill's standing in the Senate is a bit tenuous at the moment, as a trio of Democratic Senators have pledged to block the bill unless coal miners get a permanent extension on retirement and health benefits. The government runs out of money on Friday night.